Owing to rapid technological development and industrial progress, the market led by the semiconductor industry and the information and electronic industry keeps growing prosperously, and thus bringing apparent changes in many applications. They not only bring about technological achievements, but also improve people's quality of life and alter lifestyle. The influenced technological products include thousands of electronic consumer products such as personal computers, mice, scanners, mobile phones, and personal digital assistants. In particular, such products have developed from professional equipments to personal, domestic, and daily consumer products. In other words, people rely on these devices increasingly. All manufacturers are devoted to producing more related products as well as improving productivity.
In addition, computer manufacturers have developed and fabricated a computer-platform product, for example, a computer motherboard or a computer expansion card, which usually needs to be tested using a testing program prior to launching to the market for testing if the computer-platform product can operate normally and completely. During the testing process, if any device or circuit is found to be defective and cannot function normally, it will be recorded as a defect point and will be forwarded to the R&D department for improvement.
For ensuring the quality of the manufactured products from the production line of computer hardware, such as servers or notebook computers, in the current IT industry, it is required to qualify each of the respective peripheral hardware used in a computer product. The general testing method in the production line of a factory is to test the computer or its peripherals in a primitive way. That is to say, testing is performed manually by operators in the factory. For example, manually switch the switches or buttons; or judge by the operator using his eyes or ears. Some problems occur when testing manually. Inconvenience in testing, long manual operating time, and fatigue of the operators will all affect the testing result.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show schematic diagrams of a cycle for testing a computer motherboard and of cycles for testing two computer motherboards simultaneously according to the prior art. As shown in the figures, a testing cycle by which a tester performs generally includes a manual testing cycle 10′, an automatic testing cycle by program 12′, and an alternate manual and automatic testing cycle 14′. For enhancing testing efficiency, testers are required by managers to test multiple computer motherboards simultaneously. Here, two computer motherboards tested simultaneously are used as an example shown in FIG. 1B. While testing a computer motherboard, manual, automatic, and alternate manual and automatic tests are performed. Thereby, while performing the automatic testing cycle on two computer motherboards, a manual idle cycle 20′ occurs. While performing the manual test on one of the two computer motherboards and the alternate manual and automatic test on the other, a program idle cycle 22′ occurs. Consequently, the total testing time is increased, and thus the testing efficiency is reduced. When the tester tests multiple computer motherboards simultaneously, the influence becomes severer.
Accordingly, for solving the problems described above, a novel automatic testing apparatus which can avoid increases in testing time owing to manual tests on computers or computer peripherals, in testing errors, and in personnel cost is required.